Credit: Benjamin Ehinger
You’re getting visitors to your blog, but are any of them sticking around and reading what you’re posting? Measuring audience engagement is very important if you’re trying to establish yourself as a blogger, authority or just as a business with services or products to sell. You need to know if your content strategy is working or if it needs adjusting.
If you’re not tracking your content metrics, you could be failing. With the right tools you can see which blog posts are getting attention and which are not. Here are some of the most important metrics to pay attention to when measuring audience engagement for your blog.
Social Media Shares
One of the easiest ways to find out if people are reading your blog posts is through social media shares. If you’re getting a ton of shares, it’s pretty obvious people are reading your content. However, if you post something and nobody shares it, you may not have any readers.
Make sure you’re tracking the total number of shares across all platforms. When you create valuable content, people will share it, which is a good sign they are reading your content.
Time Spent on Your Site
How long does it take to read a blog post? If those coming to your website are only staying for a few seconds, they are not reading anything you’ve put out. However, if they are sticking around for a few minutes or longer, you probably have readers coming for information.
It’s also important to pay attention to your bounce rate. If this rate is really high, you may not be attracting the right audience or you’re using low quality content. With great content and the right audience, you should have visitors sticking around for a few minutes or longer and your bounce rate should be rather low.
Comments
Another way to tell if people are reading your content is through the comments. If people are commenting on what you’ve written (don’t count the spamming comments just looking for a backlink) you have readers. Real comments not only show your content is being read, but they will also add quality to your blog post. Look at the number of comments you’re getting and you’ll have a good idea of how many readers you have.
Links and Mentions
Usually you’ll find out about a link or mention through a trackback or pingback. This can tell you how good your content is and whether or not people are reading it. You can also look at the Referral section in Google Analytics to find out if other sites are referring visitors to you.
When you get plenty of links and mentions, you’re getting readers. People don’t link to content if they don’t think it’s good and valuable.
New Leads and Subscribers
One of the clearest ways to measure audience engagement on a blog is the leads and subscribers you’re getting. If you start to see a higher conversion rate, your content is doing the job. However, if you struggle to convert at a decent percentage, you may have something you need to fix.
Adjusting Content for Better Audience Engagement
If you find that you’re not getting many people to stick around and read your content, you may need to make an adjustment. High quality content is the first place to start and if you’re not a writer, it might be time to hire one.
In addition, you can look at the hosting company you’re using. If your site loads slowly, it could be why you don’t get anybody to stick around. This could be caused by your hosting company, too many images you haven’t optimized or many other factors.
Take the time to track audience engagement and you’ll be able adjust your blog and content strategy for your readers.
